Self-study
A typical gasoline-powered lawn mower emits about as much air-polluting material per hour of use as does an automobile. █████████████ ████ ██████ ██████████ █████████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████████ █████ ████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ ███ █████████ ██ ████████ ████████ ██████ ████ ████████ ████ ████████ █████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that people can help reduce air pollution by switching from gas mowers to electric mowers. This is because gas mowers produce lots of air pollutants, while electric mowers produce none.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that air pollutants should be measured on the output side of an individual lawn mower. This means the author either doesn’t think pollutants on the input side (i.e. electricity generated at air-polluting power plants) should be factored in, or that such pollutants are negligible compared to the pollutants individual lawnmowers produce.
7.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ █████████
a
Lawns help to █████ ███ ████ █████████ ██████████ ████ ███████
The author doesn’t talk about the mere fact of having a lawn. We’re interested in how different mowers contribute to air pollution.
b
Electric lawn mowers ███ ████ █████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ████████ ███████
We don’t care about expense. We care about which helps reduce air pollution.
c
Producing the power ██ ███ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██ █████
Even accounting for the energy spent producing electricity, electric mowers still produce less air pollution than gas mowers. Thus, switching to electric mowers would indeed help reduce air pollution.
d
Most manufacturers of ████████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████
We don’t care what they’re trying to do. As it is, gas mowers produce a significant amount of air pollutants.
e
Lawn mowers are ████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████████████
We’re comparing between mowers. We don’t care about the differences between mowers and cars.